Examine links between water management and overall performance of mineral processing projects using examples from existing and historic operations.

Review water related risks and identify those that are commonly overlooked by mineral processors.

Explain the concept of risk adjusted life cycle cost analysis as the emerging best practice for holistic assessments of water issues and finally

Review current best practices available for tailings management and water treatment

Water Management and Treatment – Risks and Best Practices Description:

Water has become a strategic issue for the industry as it can be both a threat and an opportunity. Thus decisions about water have grown increasingly complex. As a result new tools are being applied to enable holistic assessments of water management in mineral processing. These aim at improving performance of projects while reducing multi-hazard risks since pre-feasibility stage .

The course will draw on examples of existing and/or historic operations to explain the benefit of adopting modern best practices in water treatment, tailings management, and finally risk assessments. In brief, the participants will learn the following:

Why Net Present Value (NPV) analysis is inadequate as the sole criteria for decision making about water

How to identify common pitfalls of risk assessments and how to avoid them

What new water treatment techniques are available to improve water quality for re-use or discharge

Define best practices related to tailings water management and finally

How to arrive at risk adjusted life cycle costs of water.

Course Outline:

Block 1: Introduction: Change in industry’s thinking about water

Why? Mind your motive in addition to exploring the

Connection between tailings and water management

Block 2: Effects of water on project performance:

examples of historic and current projects in addition to analysis of impacts throughout project life cycle

A brand new course from the authors of Improving Sustainability through Reasonable Risk and Crisis Management (2007) and The Long Shadow of Human‐Generated Geohazards: Risks and Crises (2016), in cooperation with MDA corporation, the largest provider of space observation data and solutions (radar interferometry -InSAR- and optical solutions).

A course beneficial for many stakeholders

This course is beneficial for many stakeholders including, but not limited to those who:

design,

permit,

construct,

operate,

insure and finally perhaps

close a geo-environmental facility in the mining and oil & gas arena.

Why this course?

The key note lecture by Henry Brehaut at TMW2017 stated that “….clearly, the need emerges to develop risk assessments that are detailed and updatable, that allow determining residual risks (after mitigations) in addition to drawing rational and sensible mitigative roadmaps”.

Thus, clearly, the “good old ways” (a.k.a. common practices, still considered by some “best practices”) do not make the cut anymore in tailings management.

In addition, the recent UNEP report entitled “Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident” asks mining companies to make environmental and human safety a priority in management actions and on-the-ground operations by requiring:

detailed and ongoing evaluations of potential failure modes,

residual risks (UNEP uses this term to indicate the risks after known mitigation), and finally

perpetual costs of waste storage facilities.

All those point go in the direction of long term monitoring and observation, in addition to updated risk assessments which are the subject of this course.

A seamless two pronged approach consisting of Space Observation and Quantitative Risk Assessment synergy delivers value to the mining industry and regulators.

In this course we will show how a seamless two pronged approach consisting of Space Observation and Quantitative Risk Assessment synergy delivers value to the mining industry and also regulators. We will show how modern Space Observation (a mix of radar and optical satellite image data, as well as specific algorithms) can become input into a Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) platform.

We describe a QRA platform capable of using that “Rich Data” context to deliver an enhanced, updated risk landscape of a project or operation. The QRA platform has to be updatable, scalable, drillable and finally also convergent to maximize benefits.

We provide examples of specific applications this joint technology delivers to miners and governments, allowing for better Risk Informed Decision Making, which in turn generates value.

In addition this course provides case histories of specific applications where this joint technology delivers clear benefits to miners and governments, allowing for better Risk Informed Decision Making, which in turn generates value.

The two pronged approach brings significant advantages to mining end-users, whether they are mining managers, tailings stewards, other key stakeholders, and finally, the general public.

Thus, by virtue of this joint technology it is for example possible to identify emerging crises; check and update alert thresholds and finally, in timely and orderly manner, update probabilities and all other significant hazards and risk parameters. This allows to understand where projects or operations stand in term of risk mitigation at discrete and up to almost real-time pace, if and when required.

It is then possible to define a sustainable risk mitigation road-map for a dam portfolio.

Information technology (IT) , Internet of Things (IoT), and spreading connectivity are bringing very significant benefits to mining, but increase the mining industry’s exposure to cyber criminals and possibly terrorists. This phenomenon is general and occurs in every singleindustrial, infrastructural and service space, not only in cyber risks in mining.

During the last decade the techniques and tools of cyber attacks have become more sophisticated, the distinctions between actors and threats have become blurred and attack prospects more worrying.

Reportedly at least one major mining company has been the target of a massive hack, but serious infrastructural damages have only seldom been inflicted, and not in mining (as far as we know), but in other industries. Indeed, given the rapid escalation in the number and sophistication of cyber attacks, infrastructural damages are to be expected “any time”. Any infrastructural damage, especially those with environmental consequences or harm to people, will lead to significant crisis potential, reputational damages and legal consequences. Cyber risks in mining oil and gas companies are a reality we cannot ignore.

Wide spectrum of threats and potential consequences

There is a wide spectrum of threats and potential consequences spanning across the various functions of a mining company. From management to production and logistics. It show that:

Broad spectrum protection investments and particularly poorly prioritized ones are not efficient. Indeed other operational requirements oftentimes limit their scope. So it is simply not possible to protect each property from each threat. The cyberdefense must find its roots in intelligence based on convergent prioritized Risk Management. Not on standardized audits and practice of indolent regulations. Or the biased advice of fear monger solutions sellers.

Encouraging information

Encouraging information reports that, recently and in some cases, two-thirds of the overall capex on the cyber risk mitigation strategies was non-technology driven. The idea that cyber risk is not only an IT issue is finally sinking. This, however, does not necessarily mean the capex is allotted in the most efficient way at all, unless proper prioritization was performed and silo-culture is replaced by a “horizontal” thinking. And all of the above does not necessarily mean the integration of cyber risks in the ERM program.

Closing remarks

Cyber risks in mining oil and gas companies are a reality. The deployment of an adequate siloes-busting convergent analysis methodology will eliminate capex squandering and increase overall enterprise reliability.

Risk Management offers ultimately support for operational decisions and protection (mitigation). That is, provided that we: